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“Tonight, we’re putting wind in the sails of great civic ideas.” No small claim from Alexandra Stewart, the host of the Emerging Leaders Network’s ELNshowcase. April 9 saw the second edition of the annual pitch contest for civic improvements, which pits community-minded Torontonians against each other in a friendly competition for funding and resources. This year, five teams competed to win the showcase’s top prize: one thousand dollars and a hotdesk at the Centre for Social Innovation. Each team was allowed 12 minutes to explain their city-changing idea, then faced scrutiny from the judges, Dragon’s Den-style.

The teams presented to a full audience and a judges table that included Ian Black from Uber; the Centre for Social Innovation’s Adil Dhalla; and CP24 reporter Arda Zakarian. They were friendly and buoyant—the Hon. Michael Chan, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade, broke into a soft-shoe shuffle when he was introduced—but their questions, about neighbourhood buy-in, corporate partners, marketing plans, and bottom lines, were designed to dig deeper into how each program would work in real-life Toronto.